The Mysteries of the Head Girl's Tower
by calcgirl
Summary: The Head Girl's dormitory is haunted. Can Lily conquer the ghost? Or is it all in her imagination? MWPP era written in the Gothic style. Now complete!
1. Chapter 1

"Wow," Lily Evans breathed in childlike wonder as she looked around the Head's Common Room. The dormitory designated for the Head students was located not too far from the Gryffindor wing of the castle, guarded by the statue of Valancourt the Valiant. Inside, there was a fireplace with a fire already roaring, casting a warm glow throughout the room. The carpet was a neutral cream colour, and the couch and two armchairs facing the fire were blue. There were two dark cherry desks near the center of the room, where they could work on their homework separately or plan events or discuss Head duties together. To the right, there was a door leading to the Head Girl's dormitory, and to the left, a door leading to the Head Boy's.

Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, chuckled at her reaction. "I am glad you like it. I enjoyed it immensely myself many years ago. The Head Girl, Mensa McGonnagal, and I had many good times sitting on that couch over there."

James Potter looked questioningly at Dumbledore, "Any relation to Professor McGonnagal?"

"Why, yes, actually, Mensa is Minerva's aunt, on her father's side, of course."

James and Lily were both a little shocked at this news. They were not completely stupid; they knew the professors had relatives, and probably even personal lives, outside of Hogwarts, but actually to hear about them was something else.

"Of course, all of these good times were had before the Head Girl's dorm room became haunted. That did not occur until a few years after our graduation."

Lily looked perplexed, while James looked excited. "You mean it really is haunted?" He asked, excited. "I thought it was all a story the Heads have been making up to amuse themselves by scaring the younger students. I mean, ghosts are one thing here, but ghosts that don't come out from wherever they are is something else."

Lily stared at James, "I've never heard of any of this. What's this story you are talking about?"

"Perhaps I should tell it" Dumbledore interjected, "I really love to tell it to fresh audiences."

James nodded his consent, anxious to get another person's take on the story.

"Well, about a hundred years ago, before I started teaching here, the Head Girl, Elizabeth Conrad, was murdered by the Head Boy on Halloween."

"No," Lily gasped.

"That was my reaction too, Miss Evans, but at least part of it must be true. The Head Girl and Head Boy disappeared. Elizabeth's boyfriend had been coming to visit her in her dorm-"

"What?" James and Lily exclaimed. "Boys are not allowed in the girls' dormitories. Everyone knows that." Lily added.

"The founders placed a little more trust in the Head students than they did in the others. As you saw earlier, there is a password to get into the Common Room you two will share, but other than that, the Head students are on the Honor System."

James smiled gleefully, while Lily glared and then snorted. While James had matured immensely since their fifth year when she had despised him more than most any other student in the school, she still would not put it past him to come into her room in the middle of the night and play some joke on her.

"Mr. Potter, I trust that you will respect Miss Evans' privacy," Dumbledore stated.

"Yes, sir," James replied.

"Anyways, Elizabeth's boyfriend, Percival Wilkes, claimed that when he approached the Heads' dormitories he heard screaming, so he rushed to help her. He said that he saw Michael Betancourt, the Head Boy, holding the body of Elizabeth, and when Percival tried to stun him, he took off with Elizabeth's body, leaving their wands behind. We checked their wands, and there were no deadly curses used by either of them, so he must have used a "Muggle" way of killing her. There was no blood, so everyone conjectured that he had strangled her."

Lily gasped. "Don't worry, Lily, I will protect you from any harm," James stated gallantly.

"I'm sure you will, Potter," Lily scoffed. Though she normally called him by his first name ever since they reached a truce in the middle of their sixth year, she would occasionally refer to him by his surname when he was acting annoying or haughty.

"Well, no one ever found Elizabeth or Michael. They did not know what he did with her body, nor could they ever find him to charge him with her murder. Wilkes said that Betancourt had a little 'crush' on the Head Girl and could not handle the fact that she loved Wilkes, so he killed her rather than have to share her with another man. The school administrators were, of course, forced to find a new Head Boy and Girl, but ever since that night, the Head Girls have claimed to hear voices and screaming in the dormitory. None of them have stayed long in this room; Alice Figg, who was Head Girl three years ago, stayed longer than any of the others, and she only lasted two weeks." Lily remembered the sweet, older Gryffindor and remembered the stories of how the girl had been really awkward and slightly cowardly until her fifth year, and how, shortly after graduation she had become engaged to Frank Longbottom, whose mother put fear into the hearts of even the bravest of Gryffindors. Lily figured that if Alice could not handle the "ghost" of the Head Girl's dormitory then she, Lily, would not have a snowball's chance in Hell. However, she was still skeptical as to the truth of the story.

"Thank you for that wonderful story, Professor Dumbledore, but I don't think I believe it. There's too many holes in it, one of them being the fact that ghosts can go wherever they want. Why would her ghost want to stay and haunt the Head Girl's dorm when she could go and haunt Betancourt? It doesn't make sense."

"I know it doesn't make sense, but that's the story. Do either of you have any questions for me concerning your duties or anything else before I leave?"

James and Lily shook their heads, "No, sir," so Dumbledore left, bidding them a goodnight.

After he left, James turned to Lily and asked, "So, what do you think?"

Lily snorted and said, "It sounds like a load of bull to me. I'm not going to be scared of a dorm which may or may not have a ghost haunting it."

"Well, if you do, you know you can always come and sleep in my room with me."

Lily snorted again, "I'm sure you'd like that, Potter, but I definitely do no need your comfort," she said, crossing her arms defiantly. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Lily." The two then turned and headed to their respective dormitories, anxiously looking forward to the next day, when their duties as Heads would begin, as well as their final year at Hogwarts.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, or anybody else I allude to in this story.

A/N: Thank you to my reviewers. This story is written completely, and all seven chapters should be posted in the next week or so. I am trying to write this in the style of the Gothic, so if anybody has any comments on that aspect, please mention them in your review.

_"I'll tell what I saw, though how I came to enter_

_I cannot well say, being so full of sleep"_

-The Inferno of Dante

* * *

The individual dorm rooms were charmed to conform to the colours of the Head's house, and Lily looked around her scarlet-decorated room. The bed was full-sized, nicer than the twin-sized ones in the dormitories shared by the girls in her house. Beyond that, the room was kind of creepy. Whereas the Gryffindor dormitories had carpet, her room merely had a scarlet rug, and the rest of the floor was stone, as were the walls. There was a thin layer of dust covering the floor, dresser, and everything else, and cobwebs were spread across all of the corners. I seemed as though even the house elves were scared to come in there and clean it. It was slightly musty, so Lily went to open the window a little bit. With some difficulty, she managed to pry it open, and a gust of wind surrounded her immediately. She jumped and gasped as several brightly-coloured leaves blew into her face, then laughed at herself. 

"Goodness, Lily, you need to ignore the crazy stories. You may start to believe them." She proceed to tidy up a bit, charming the cobwebs and dust away and clearing out the leaves that had blown in, even placing a special air-freshening charm to negate the musty, dusty smell of the little-occupied room. After about forty-five minutes of cleaning, she decided that it was good enough for the night and climbed into bed and was asleep soon afterwards.

Although she did have her nights when she could sleep through anything, Lily was, in general, a light sleeper, so when she woke around midnight she thought nothing of it. Until, of course, she heard the voices. They were difficult to discern at first, but eventually she was able to make out the words "help" and "save." She admonished herself, conjecturing that it was merely the wind and her over-active imagination, and she rolled over and went back to sleep.

* * *

The next morning, she went to breakfast, excited about her first day of classes. She was ready to work hard this year because she wanted to do extremely well on her NEWT exams at the end of the year so she could get a job at the Ministry of Magic. Her best friend, Samantha Killon came and sat by her, yawning sleepily. 

"Morning, Lily. How are you?"

"Great, Samantha. I'm ready to start classes. How about you?"

"A little tired, but ready to take on anything, even the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher." Lily laughed at the "bravery" of her friend. The new Defense professor this year was supposed to be really tough, going by the rumors flying around at the Welcoming Feast last night. He was an ex-Auror who had excelled in the field, retiring with an Order of Merlin, Second Class.

McGonagall came by at that moment, handing out timetables. Lily took hers and read it eagerly. "Defense first thing today, neat, then Charms, and then Herbology after lunch. Oh, great, Potions is first thing tomorrow morning. Back to the grindstone with Slughorn," she groaned sarcastically. Slughorn was not her favorite professor, but he was okay. She had learned not to complain too much when a professor likes you despite your cheeky attitude.

"Awww, poor baby," Samantha 'consoled.' "At least you don't have Binns for the double period. I swear, that man is so old and crotchety, he is going to die any day now."

"You know, you shouldn't say stuff like that. He just might die tomorrow, and then you would feel guilty."

"Not bloody likely," Samantha muttered under her breath. Lily smacked her upside the head. James and his friends entered just then.

"Ghost making you violent, Lily?" James joked. Everyone laughed except for Samantha, who did not know the story of haunted Head Girl's dorm. James and Lily, with a little help from Sirius, who exaggerated the story greatly, quickly related the tale to Samantha.

Samantha had pretty much the same reaction Lily had had the night previously. Upon stating her skeptical opinion, Lily nodded in agreement. "The stories are getting to me, though. I could have sworn I heard voices last night."

"You know, hearing voices no one else can hear is not a good sign. It means you're going crazy," James' best friend injected into the conversation.

"Thank you very much, Sirius. I appreciate your vote of confidence," Lily said sarcastically. When Lily had become friendlier with James the year before, his friends had come along with the package. You can't be friends with one of the quartet without having to learn to like the other three.

"Wow, Lily. I'm impressed. I don't think I could have handled that dorm. We've been hearing the story for years, and I think I am more afraid of the ghost in the Head Girl's dorm than I am of the Bloody Baron," Peter added to the discussion.

Lily smiled at the boy who always seemed slightly nervous but went along with everything the group did, anyways. She kind of admired him because he refused to be held back by his fears and tried very hard to keep up with the other boys in the group academically. "If you want, I can introduce you sometime if I ever meet the infamous Elizabeth Conrad." The six teenagers laughed and then began to fill in the others on the little bits of their summer holidays they had not had time to discuss on the train ride the day before.

Much too soon, in the opinion of most of the group, the time came to go to class, so they all left, hurrying so as not to be late for Defense. They did not want to be late on the first day, especially for a teacher of whom they were slightly apprehensive.

* * *

That night at dinner, the group discussed their first day of classes. They had all been in Defense together first thing, but after that their schedules had differed. The conversation of other courses did not last long though, because the new Defense professor was the most interesting subject not only for them, but also for the rest of the school. While a little intimidating, Professor Quensel was very good. Everyone was in awe of the great things he had accomplished and hung on his every word. After a short lecture, he had led them in a practical lesson. The Hogwarts students had participated in few such lessons in their years of Defense Against the Dark Arts, so they were eager for the rest of the term and what they would be facing. 

"I hope we get to face a boggart," Samantha stated. "In a way, I am kind of curious about what form mine will take. I know I'm scared of several things, but I have no clue what I am _most _afraid of."

"I know what Lily here is most afraid of," James added. Everyone looked questioningly at the dark-haired boy. "The ghost of Elizabeth Conrad." He laughed as he ducked Lily's hand, which narrowly missed the back of his head. "It's a good thing I've been dodging bludgers my whole life, otherwise I would have a knot on the back of my head, Evans."

Lily smirked, satisfied with herself.

"I'm looking forward to learning how to do a Patronus. I've asked the past several Defense professors if they would teach us, but none of them knew how to do a proper one," Remus said.

"Count on Remus to want to learn the hardest Defense spell possible," Sirius joked. The group's conversation remained along the same lines the rest of the evening, moving into the Head's common room after dinner. Lily went to bed before anyone else, wanting to look around her room a little more since she did not get to explore it much the evening before with all of the cleaning she had been forced to do.

The first thing she further investigated was the bookshelf. It was one of the many things she had been forced to dust the evening before, but now she wanted to see what books were on it. There were several old course books, probably left by former Head Girls who had either high-tailed out of the dorm as fast as they could, taking only what was necessary or, before the "ghost" had started to haunt the dormitory, merely had left them for posterity when they graduated. Lily read over the titles, but then noticed the top shelf of the bookcase. On that shelf were placed several Muggle classics, including several by Jane Austen. Several of them she had already read, but one, Northanger Abbey, caught her eye. She had longed to read this one for a while, but had been unable to find it during the holidays, and the Hogwarts library did not have a copy.

She took the novel with her to her bed, but was only able to read a few pages before she fell fast asleep.

_Lily heard the voice again: the faint "help . . . save . . ." of a disembodied echo. She sat up, calling out, "Who's there?" There was no reply, but for the calls for help. Lily climbed out of bed, following the sound of the voice. Down the stairs. Through the Head's common room. Out past the statue of Valancourt the Valiant. Down another set of stairs into a deserted hall. Again, Lily called out, "Who's there?" _

_Hearing a noise behind her, she turned abruptly. "Oh, James, it's only you. What are you doing out in the hall at this time?" As he stepped into the light cast by her wand, Lily gasped at his countenance. She watched with growing fear as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. His eyes glowed red and black, burning with hatred. He approached her, slowly, confidently. "J-James? What are you doing?" Without responding, he closed the gap between the two of them, raising his handkerchief to her face._

"_Shhh," he whispered. "Don't scream."_

_As he pressed the handkerchief to her face with increasing force, Lily woke with a scream of terror._

* * *

Someone was shaking her. As she opened her eyes, she screamed in horror once more, for standing there in front of her, was James Potter, the object of her dreams. 

"Shh, shh, it's okay Lily, it's just me."

Lily looked into his eyes, which were now their usual hazel and were filled with concern. She took a few deep breaths. "It was just a dream. It was just a dream."

She continued this mantra for a minute, while James relaxed and smiled at her. "I think this dorm is getting to even you, O Brave One."


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, or anybody else I may allude to in this story.

A/N: Thanks to all my reviewers! I'm trying to include at least a few gothic elements (ideally full gothic, but I doubt I was successful), so if anyone can comment on that I would really appreciate it.

_"But I should die of shame before our Trojan men and noblewomen if like a coward I avoided battle, nor am I moved to."_ – The Iliad

* * *

The next morning, Lily was tired, having had difficulty getting back to sleep. She shrugged at her overactive imagination that had so affected her dreams and then got dressed and ready for her second day of classes.

The day passed fairly uneventfully, unless one would count the fact that Severus Snape had been her assigned partner for Potions that day. Professor Slughorn enjoyed putting the pair together, claiming that his "two best students should learn to work together because they could come up with brilliant ways to improve existing potions" and other loads of bull like that.

Lily did not particularly mind working with Snape, for he really was one of the best students in Potions, and he usually unwittingly taught her something new every time they worked together, but he was always smug about it when he did so. Snape, on the other hand, absolutely hated working with "the great Lily Evans" in Potions. He could not stand that a Muggle-born could be as good at Potions as he was. He had almost started to think of her as a decent person when she was always yelling at James Potter, but now that she was friendly with him, he could hardly stand her.

Whenever they worked together, he always had to sneer at her and tell her that the way she was mixing the potion was not the best way: that it may be the way described in the textbook, but there were better ways to make the potion.

That particular day had been one of the worst working with Snape. He unceremoniously asked her, sneeringly, how she had been handling the haunted dormitory. Always trying to be the more mature person, she did not rise to his bait and merely smiled and told him she did not believe the stories about the dorm.

"Did you know that the Canton was a Mud – er –Muggleborn, and Betancourt was a pureblood?" Snape could not risk insulting a member of the professor's "Slug Club" outright in the middle of Potions class. He continued, "And that this is the first time in one hundred years that the Head Girl has been Muggle-born and the Head Boy pureblood? There are several similarities between you and Canton and Potter and Betancourt. Everyone knows Potter has a crush on you and would probably do something drastic to keep you to himself."

Lily rolled her eyes at this. "Yes, Snape, I am sure that James is going to kill me. I will lie awake at night wondering when he is going to come in and strangle me in my sleep." She tried to keep her face from reflecting the slight fear she still felt following her nightmare.

"Scoff if you like, but don't come haunting me when he kills you," Snape sneered.

"I'll take your advice under advisement," she replied dryly. They worked the rest of the period with as little conversation as possible, Lily trying to peer over Snape's shoulder occasionally, attempting to read what he was writing in his textbook and Snape glaring at her whenever she did so.

* * *

That evening, Lily related the events to the other Seventh year Gryffindors, who had mixed reactions. Samantha and Remus rolled their eyes, Peter looked slightly weary, and Sirius and James looked livid. They were always up for giving Snape Hell, but were occasionally restrained by Lily. She saw the looks on the pair's faces and glared at them. "Don't even think about it," she glared.

"You can't let that git insult you like that," James said.

"He didn't insult me, he only tried to scare me, and I assure you he did not succeed," Lily stated stubbornly.

James relaxed slightly, but stated, "Well, tell us if he tries anything else."

"Whatever," Lily replied, then looked over at Samantha and changed the subject, asking her how Binns was doing. "Still alive?" she quipped.

"Just as old, oblivious, and alive as ever." James, Sirius, and Peter, who were also in the class, cringed and nodded their agreement, bringing smiles to the faces of the two remaining Seventh years, neither of whom had taken a class from Binns since their fifth year.

* * *

The next morning at breakfast, Sirius asked, "So, Lily, it's Friday, and you have now spent three nights in the most haunted room of the castle. How are you holding together?"

"I'm fine, thank you. Been sleeping like a baby actually."

"Awww, how cute, little Lily Evans sleeping like a baby." Lily rolled her eyes at Sirius's comment, and then looked to her best friend.

"So, Samantha, do you have any big plans for the weekend?"

"Of course. I'm going to sleep, then I'm going to eat, and then I am going to go back to sleep again. Sunday night I will rush to do all of my homework, and then I am going to go to sleep much later than I should."

Lily roller her eyes again, this time at her friend's honest analysis of herself. "Why do I ask?"

* * *

That night, Lily stayed up until eleven reading Northanger Abbey, chuckling to herself about how silly and over imaginative Catherine Morland could be. The girl, having read too many novels, was always imagining the worst of people. She had gone as far as to think her friend's father had killed his wife just because he did not like to see her favorite part of the garden nor would allow anyone to go into her old chambers! Lily hoped she would never be that silly.

Not long after setting aside her book and drifting off to sleep, she woke to the sound of voices again. They were not ghostly, however, but distinctly living, breathing, seventeen-year-old boy voices. She groaned aloud as she heard a particularly loud shout from what must have been none other than Sirius Black. She dragged herself out of bed and put on her dressing gown, knowing that she would never get to sleep with them making such a racket in the Head's Common Room. Lily descended the stairs to find the four boys playing a particularly loud game of Exploding Snap. Upon seeing her at the bottom of the staircase, the boys' faces assumed looks of guilt.

Ever the negotiator, Remus promptly apologized for the ruckus, while Sirius cheekily asked, "Did Elizabeth wake you up? Do you need some strong men to save you from the horrors of the Head Girl's dormitory?"

Lily glared at Sirius and asked them to be quiet. "You don't want to see me when I'm tired."

"I think we'd better be quieter, guys," Peter stated in an attempt to keep the peace.

"Thank you, Peter," Lily replied, turning to head up the stairs once more.

Thirty minutes later, just as Lily was drifting off to sleep once more, she heard voices again, this time the disembodied voices she has heard her first night. Now, she distinctly heard the word "us." The voices whispered "help us," "save us." There was also a faint pounding noise accompanying the voices. Lily shivered involuntarily. She looked towards the window, though which she could see the eerie light of the waxing crescent moon glowing through the tree branches outside. The air was spookily still, especially compared to the steady breeze that had been blowing the past several days. She got out of bed, slipping her house shoes onto her feet to protect them from the frigid stone floor. She grabbed her wand from her nightstand, lighting it as she approached the bookcase beside the open window. The still, cold night air engulfed her as she got closer, and the voices and poundings seemed to get louder, though they were still faint. A particularly loud cry of, "Oh, d—n, it's useless," shocked Lily out of her stupor, and she ran out of her dorm and down the stairs to the Common Room, where James and his friends were poring over a sheet of parchment, conversing conspiratorially, yet more quietly than she had ever heard them.

They looked up as she entered once more, panting from lack of breath from not only the run downstairs, but also fear. Sirius quickly muttered a few words at the parchment that Lily could not discern, and the four boys looked at the teenaged girl, with apparent concern. James was the first to speak, "Are you okay, Lily?"

In the warmth and light of the common room, Lily began to feel silly for her reaction to the voices and noises she had heard, but her embarrassment quickly turned to slight anger. She looked suspiciously at the boys and asked if they had been sneaking into her room.

Confused, James replied, "Of course not, why?"

"Because walls do not usually pound on themselves and cry 'help us, save us,' Potter. You boys must have had something to do with this. No one else has access to this area."

James looked slightly hurt at her accusation. "We've been down here the entire time, honest. Besides, we're all talk and no action when it comes to scaring you, and you know that."

Lily could see the honesty in his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry. I guess all of those stories are getting to me. And to think I was laughing about Catherine's overactive imagination." At the boys' confused faces, she explained Catherine was a character in the book she was reading, and the boys shrugged, not caring about a "girly" book, as most boys considered anything written by Jane Austen.

Although she had calmed down considerably since she had burst unceremoniously into the common room, Lily was not quite up to sleeping in her room that evening, so she opted to curl up in one of the armchairs, letting the boys' quiet whispers lull her to sleep. Unfortunately, she missed Sirius' question of, "What if it really is the ghost of Elizabeth Canton? But then, why would she say 'us'?"


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, or anybody else I may allude to in this story.

A/N: Thanks to all of my reviewers. There are three more chapters after this. If you know anything about Gothic literature, please let me know if it reflects any aspects of it.

* * *

"_Don't accept another person's opinion unthinkingly_." – The Trial

The next morning, Lily awoke to find herself alone in the Head's common room, the fire nearly dead, and a blanket spread across her body. She smiled a little, knowing one of the boys must have placed it there after she fell asleep, and got up, stretched, and headed up to her room. With the sunlight streaming brightly through the window, Lily could not help but feel silly once again at her reaction to the noises she thought she had heard the night before.

She got dressed quickly to go down to breakfast, but as she turned to leave, she glanced once more at the bookcase and noticed something she had not seen before. There was a small book on top of the bookcase, lying haphazardly as if placed there by someone with more important things in mind than putting a book away neatly. The fact this book, unlike all of the others, was not placed precisely where it should be drew Lily towards it. Being only 5'5"(1.7m), she had to stretch in order to reach the book. She glanced at the small, black book, and, shrugging, placed it gently in her book bag to look at after breakfast.

Since it was Saturday morning, there were few people in the Great Hall for breakfast, many students opting to forego the very important meal in favor of a lie-in. Without anyone to converse with, Lily ate quickly and headed to the library, intending to get a head start on her weekend homework. Once there, she reached into her bag and felt the small book she had already forgotten about. Curiosity overcame her once more, and she opened it eagerly. On the inside cover, scripted carefully were the words _Property of Elizabeth Ann Canton, a gift from her grandmother, Caroline Brown Canton, 6 February 1872._ Lily gasped with surprise. 'This must be her diary!' Lily thought to herself. With increasing zeal, Lily turned a few pages, but found nothing. She sighed, 'she was Head Girl. Elizabeth was probably intelligent enough to put a concealment charm of some sort on her diary.' Lily then set aside the diary to try to crack into some other time and, sighing, pulled out some parchment and her Charms textbook, began the first of her many essays assigned for Monday.

* * *

That evening at dinner, she was telling Samantha about the diary when Snape came up behind her and snatched up the book. He sneered at her, and, thinking it was hers, said, "Well, well, Evans has a diary. I wonder what it says." He opened it, and seeing nothing, took out his wand, saying, "Reveal yourself." He looked in surprise at the words that appeared on the page. Open-mouthed, he stared at Lily, stating, "Well, Evans, I didn't think you had it in you." Then, seeing James and his friends approaching the table, Snape tossed the book back to Lily and departed, leaving behind two speechless girls. 

Lily recovered first and opened the book, only to find it blank once more. James sat down next to her, glaring at Snape's retreating back, and inquired, "What was that all about?"

Snapping out of her reverie, Lily looked up at James; "I found this book in my dormitory. I think it's the diary of Elizabeth Canton. Snape obviously thought it was mine. I hadn't been able to see anything in it, but when Snape told it to reveal itself, it obviously said something, but I cannot imagine what it might have been."

Shrugging, James reached for the book, which Lily handed to him. He flipped through it quickly, and then pointed his wand at a page near the middle, ordering, "Reveal yourself." Unlike when Snape did this, the book shot water out at him. This prompted his "friends" to laugh at him, hysterically. He shrugged, "that's odd. I wonder why it responded to Snape and not to me." The rest of the group looked as clueless as he felt. None of the others wanted to risk the embarrassment of getting a face full of water in front the entire school, so no one else tried to order anything of the diary at that time.

After dinner, though, James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Samantha all retreated to the Head's common room, and while Remus and Peter started a game of Wizard's Chess, the rest continued to discuss the diary. Sirius, being the brave Gryffindor that he was, asked to see the diary, and, upon receiving it, ordered the same thing of it as James and Snape had, and, like James, received a face full of water. Wiping his face on his robes, Sirius cracked, "Well, maybe the diary knew that Snape would melt if water touched him and did not feel like being responsible for the death of an 'innocent' student," prompting laughter from everyone but Lily, who tried to glare admonishingly, but failed as a smile appeared on her face.

Looking up from his chess match with Peter, which was surprisingly close, Remus said, "you know, I was reading the other day about passwords and secret codes and there was one particular article that stood out." He glanced around the group, and, confirming that he had their attention, continued, "It said that there is a way that you can charm an object to respond to any order given to it by a family member. As long as the caster is alive, it will not respond to anyone but the caster, unless a specific password is uttered. It went on to say that, upon the caster's death, it would respond to the orders of their survivors and their descendants, but to non-relatives only upon uttering the specific password. Basically, maybe Snape is a descendant of Canton, so it has to do whatever it wants, but if one of us must have the password in order to see what's inside the diary." The other boys knew that he must have read this in his research to improve the map, but the girls assumed he had been reading for a class or for fun. Either way, everyone believed his hypothesis, and were entertained by the idea that Snape was some sort of descendant of the Muggleborn Canton.

Since a few of the students present had short attention spans, the conversation once again turned to simpler matters, and before she knew it, Lily found herself falling asleep in the common room once again.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, or anyone else I may allude to in this story.

A/N: Thanks to my reviewers. Your comments mean a lot to me. If you have any comments about the Gothic elements especially, drop me a review._

* * *

_

_"Cowardice grips your spirit – which can twist_

_A man away from the noblest enterprise_

_As a trick of vision startles a shying beast."_

- The Inferno of Dante

Several weeks passed fairly uneventfully, well, as uneventfully as days can be at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Potions exploded, students attacked each other in the hallways, and people emerged from classes with weird attachments on their bodies. In the middle of October, Lily found herself partnered with Snape in Potions once more.

"I see Potter has yet to murder you in your sleep," Snape sneered, "unfortunately," he added under his breath. Luckily for him, Lily did not hear his last word.

She looked at Snape, saying exasperatedly, "Of course he hasn't. Why would he?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because you are leading him on, and dating someone else at the same time. By the way, who is Percival?"

Lily looked at Snape questioningly, "I don't know. Am I supposed to know him?"

Snape looked at Lily unbelievingly. "So, you've meeting some guy in your room on weekends and been writing about him in your diary, yet you refuse to acknowledge that you know him. Tsk, tsk."

Lily glared at Snape, "What in the world are you talking about. I don't even have a diary. Explain yourself!"

Snape stared at Lily, "Don't be an idiot, Evans, you know very well what diary I am talking about: the diary you had at dinner that day. The one where you wrote 'I hope Percival doesn't find out about my relationship with –' and that's all I saw. But it doesn't take an idiot to figure out the rest. You've been leading on Potter and this 'Percival' character. It would be no wonder if you end up dead, just like Canton."

Lily gaped at Snape, "That's what you saw?" she asked, and blushed slightly at the idea of having a relationship with James.

Misinterpreting her surprise at finding out what the diary said for surprise that he knew her secret, Snape sneered at Lily. "I guess your secret's out. If I cared about the relationships of Gryffindors I may have told other people about your various little 'trysts', but I have more important things to do than mess with the love lives of pathetic _Muggleborns_ and those obsessed with them." He spat out the word "Muggleborns" as if it were one of the worst ever spoken by man.

Lily opened her mouth to retort, but at that moment Slughorn called for the students' attention, and she was forced to turn her attention to the instructor. After class, before he left, Snape took a parting shot at Lily, telling her to sleep with one eye open, before running off to the Slytherin common room.

Lily related her latest Snape encounter to Samantha and the boys at dinner that night. They were all surprised to hear what Elizabeth Canton had written in her diary. "So, she was having some sort of side relationship with the Head Boy while she was dating Betancourt? Ooh, this gets better all the time," Samantha exclaimed.

"I just can't believe that anyone would think I would kill you, Lily," James added, more concerned that Samantha.

"Wait," Sirius interjected, "what if Snape is planning a way to make you kill Lily? Maybe he is going to put you under the Imperius Curse and force you to strangle her in her sleep!"

"Be realistic, Sirius. Snape may not be the nicest guy in the world, but what reason would he have for making James kill me? It's illogical."

"Maybe Snape is secretly in love with you, and can't stand that you are supposedly involved with James, and the other guy, of course, and he would rather you be dead than have to share you?" Lily rolled her eyes at this, but Sirius continued, "So he not only gets revenge on you for not loving him like he wants you to, but he also gets revenge on James by making him responsible for the death of the woman he loves?" James and Lily blushed slightly at this. "You had better be careful, James. Snape might just be desperate enough to try something like this."

No one else at the table took Sirius seriously, but James paled slightly at the idea and was quiet for most of the rest of the evening.

Lily was a little quieter than usual, lost in her thoughts. She had not told anyone else, but every weekend, she had been hearing the voices and the pounding over by the bookcase. She had taken to sleeping in the common room on weekends, saying that she enjoyed the company of the boys. Sirius, Remus, and Peter believed she just liked being near James, but James was a little scared for her. Lily Evans was known for being levelheaded, and if she was not sleeping in her dorm, there must be something wrong.

* * *

As Halloween approached, Professor Quesnel began preparing the class for a practical lesson on boggarts, and, finally, two days before Halloween came the day for The Boggart Lesson, as Sirius had dramatically dubbed it. Everyone arrived early for the class, eager to begin.

Many of the students had typical boggarts: spiders, vampires, and, oddly, a flock of birds rained down on one Muggleborn who had watched too many movies as a child. Samantha, who had been so anxious to find out her worst fear, found herself being attacked by several giant moths, flying in her face, prompting her to scream like the banshee someone earlier had brought into the room. The boggart form that really surprised everyone and caused Professor Quesnel to intervene, though, was James'. As he approached the boggart, slightly less self-assured than usual, but more so than most of the other students, the boggart took on a form neither he nor Lily would soon forget.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, or anyone else I may allude to in this story.

A/N: Thanks to all of my reviewers, especially Noemi. I did not notice the incongruities in the last name. I will go back and fix that after the story is completely posted (there is only one chapter left).

* * *

_"Unable to control himself, he began to weep quietly_." - Blindness

The class stared in shock at the form of James Potter holding his Gryffindor necktie, poised to strangle Lily Evans. Severus Snape snapped his neck over to look at the real Potter, whose face was white, then over to the real Evans, who could not have looked more surprised. James' voice shook as his boggart double tightened the tie around Lily's neck and her face started to turn red and then purple and her eyes started to bulge. "Ri – Rid – dikkul –" James was unable to finish the incantation because at that moment he did something he had never done before, even after sustaining several bludger injuries – he fainted.

Professor Quesnel rushed to finish off the boggart, which temporarily turned into a Dementor before tripping over its robe and disappearing into smoke, while Lily and Remus rushed to revive James. Samantha, Peter, and, surprisingly, Sirius, stood back, helpless, as Remus whispered, "Enervate," and Lily pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket, and, using her wand and muttering, "Augumenti," pressed the cold compress to James' forehead.

The first words out of James' mouth were, "I'm so sorry, Lily. Are you okay?"

"Of course, I am, silly," she said, looking into his eyes, "it was just a boggart. See, I'm fine." She took his hand in hers, and he sighed, gratefully.

Trying to make light of the situation, now, he weakly chuckled, "Now, there's a blow to my ego: killing my friend and fainting because of it." Lily smiled, telling him he would surely never be able to live it down.

* * *

The next day, before Potions, Snape voluntarily approached Lily. "Well, well, well, seems as if someone at least took my warning seriously."

Lily glared at Snape. "You really shouldn't go around putting absurd ideas in people's heads."

"What are you going to do about it, _Evans?_" he snarled.

"Absolutely nothing . . . at the moment," she said suggestively, feeling slightly satisfied as Snape paled.

"I'll take it under advisement," he replied after he had recovered slightly. He was saved a retort from Lily by Slughorn's entrance and the beginning of class.

* * *

Halfway across the castle, in Binns' NEWT level History of Magic class, a seventeen-year-old boy woke with a start as if from a bad dream. James Potter had been dreaming, once again, about being forced to strangle Lily Evans. Fear consumed him every time he saw Lily's eyes begin to bulge, and while this was enough to make him fearful on its own, but when he thought of how it was he himself that was doing this to her, one of his dearest friends. These nightmares had kept him awake well into the morning, causing him to be more inclined to sleep in History of Magic class than usual. Professor Binns, who was rarely distracted by anything, looked up at James' shudder and glared at him. Absentmindedly, James apologized, shocking Binns momentarily, but he recovered quickly and returned to his notes.

* * *

That evening at dinner, Lily took out the diary, as she was wont to do at least once a day, claiming that she wanted to know what it said. Frustrated with hearing her say this every day, Samantha exclaimed exasperatedly, "Well, then, why don't you start yelling words at it and hope that it works!" Lily looked pensively at her friend for a moment.

"You know, I just may do that." She then rose from her seat at the Gryffindor table and left, leaving five stunned Gryffindors in her wake.

When James entered the common room thirty minutes later, he found Lily sitting on the floor in front of the fire, surrounded by a pile of damp towels. He chuckled slightly at the sight and her stubbornness. "Try abracadabra" he joked.

"Ha ha ha" she replied, then blushed, "I already did."

They both smiled at that. "Well, let's think, what do we know about Canton?"

"Well . . ." Lily thought for a second, "she was apparently dating Percival Wilkes and leading on the Head Boy, Michael Betancourt. Maybe the password is one of their names." She tried both of them, but the only results she received were two squirts of water to the face.

"Here, let me take a turn," James said, obtaining the book from Lily. "Maybe it's something about her house. Gryffindor rules!" he yelled at the diary and got a face full of water. Lily laughed as she handed him a fresh towel. He repeated the process with each of the remaining houses, including Slytherin, albeit grudgingly.

Lily groaned in frustration, then said with a laugh, "You know, it will be really ironic if Snape was making up what he said he read in the diary, and it's really just a shopping list or something like that like in Northanger Abbey." At these last two words, careful script began to appear on the pages of the diary. James and Lily looked at each other and laughed, then looked eagerly at the first page of the diary. They could almost hear the voice of a young girl as they read the words written so carefully and clearly over one hundred years ago.

"_7 February 1872. My Grandmother gave me this diary for my seventeenth birthday yesterday. I have never been very good at keeping diaries, but I guess now that I am of age (in the Wizarding World at least), I should try once more." _The young couple continued to read in silence for half an hour, the quiet broken only by the turning of pages. They learned that Elizabeth Canton, had, in fact, been a Muggleborn Gryffindor, and she took her Head Girl duties very seriously because of her heritage and desire not to make a fool of herself. She mentioned Percival Wilkes, the half-blood wizard to whom she was betrothed. Apparently, calling him her boyfriend was something amended in the story to make sense to modern students. The idea of betrothal was not understood to most teenagers nowadays. Elizabeth, though, did not like Wilkes at all, but found herself falling for the Head Boy, Michael Betancourt, whom she would never be able to marry because she was a Muggleborn and he was a pureblood. This of course, was not allowed because it was necessary to keep the bloodlines pure. James scoffed at this, for many still believed it. Michael, at least in Elizabeth's eyes, appeared to return Elizabeth's affections, but they could think of no way to be together. Indeed, as Snape claimed, Elizabeth worried about Perival discovering the developing relationship between herself and Michael, and fretted over what he would do if he did find out. The diary stopped abruptly on the Eve of Halloween in 1873, the night before Michael had supposedly killed her.

When they had finished, James and Lily looked at each other in awe, then James got an anxious look on his face. "Wait a second, did she mention something about a hidden room in the Head Girl's dormitory?"

"I think so. Why? What does that have to do with anything?"

Without responding to Lily's question, James whipped a mirror out of his pocket, clearly stating "Sirius Black!" Lily looked in wonder as Sirius' face appeared in the mirror.

"What's up, Pr-"

Sirius broke off as James shook his head and said pointedly, "Lily's here."

"What do you want?"

"Grab the guys and Samantha and bring the map here to the Head's common room."

"Be right there." And the conversation was over.

"What was that about?" Lily asked.

"You'll see."

Lily did not have to wait long, for five minutes later, Sirius arrived with the parchment they had been looking at the night she had accused the boys of making the noises in her dorm in order to scare her.

James explained about everything the diary had said, especially the part about the hidden room in the Head Girl's dorm room. "You don't think it would show on the map do you?" During the short wait for the others, Lily had realized what James had figured out already: that Michael, or whoever had killed Elizabeth, may have disposed of her body in the hidden room in the dormitory, but she still did not know what map he could possibly be talking about.

"Of course it would," Peter replied, confident in the work of his friends. Both girls were now curious as to what "map" they meant.

The boys looked at Lily and Samantha, and Sirius asked, "Can you two keep a secret?"

The girls nodded in the affirmative, and Sirius opened up the parchment, clearly stating, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." The girls stared in awe at the map that materialized on the seemingly simple piece of parchment. "Can we go up to your dorm?" Sirius asked, and Lily, stupefied, merely nodded.

Up in her dorm, James, who had confiscated the map from Sirius, confidently approached the bookcase. He looked at the map and chuckled, "Well, that's really creative," and with a swish and a flick of his wand, he chanted, "Open Sesame!"

Lily, who was at the front of the group next to James, was the first to see the contents of the room behind the bookcase, and cried out in surprise at what she saw.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, or anyone else I may allude to in this story. Nor did I write the script for Die Hard.

A/N: Thanks to all of my reviewers! Jaded Rebel, there's always room for cheese in fanfics, right? Thanks tropical.waters, I'm kind of neurotic about spelling and grammar, so I really appreciate being appreciated (make sense?). This is the last chapter, (tear), but I have another story I will be putting up soon, so feel free to check my author page in the next couple of weeks. _

* * *

_

_"Let him dare to face once more the man he has so courageously injured; danger shall teach him morality, and vengeance justice – let him come, and receive my sword in his heart!"_ – The Mysteries of Udolpho

There, in the midst of one hundred years of dust and cobwebs, lay not one, but two human skeletons. Peering over Lily's shoulders, Remus and Sirius were able to see the skeletons also, and relayed the sight to Peter and Samantha, both of whom gasped in surprise.

The skeletons still had Hogwarts robes on, though they were slightly decayed. Pieces of skin remained on both, but neither had eyes or tongues. As the clock struck midnight, indicating that it was now Halloween, something began to stir in the small five-foot (1.5m) square room. With cries of terror, outrage, helplessness, and anger, a ghost emerged from each of the skeletons. One was now identifiable as a young girl of about seventeen years, with what must once have been a pretty face and long, straight hair. The other, a boy of about the same age, rose next to her. He had short hair and was clean-shaven.

The living students gasped in surprise and horror at the sight of these apparitions. They were used to seeing Nearly Headless Nick float around, but he never emerged from a skeleton.

The ghosts' cries turned from those of horror and helplessness to surprise and relief. "Michael, we've been found!" The eerie voice of the girl cried.

"I see that," the boy's ghost replied, trying to hug the girl next to him.

The living teenagers continued to gape at the sight. Sirius was the first to recover from his stupor. "Are – are you Elizabeth Canton and Michael Betancourt?"

"Why, yes. And we will be forever grateful to you guys for setting us free."

"I – I thought the dead _are_ free," Remus replied, remembering a line from a novel by Jean-Paul Sartre.

"Les morts sont libres." Michael scoffed. "Yes, I read Les Jeux Sont Faits as well. Ghosts stay around when they have unfinished business or are too scared to go on to what is next. Unfortunately for us, we had unfinished business. We cannot leave until someone finds us and learns the truth of what happened to us. It is the only way our souls can rest. I tried to convince my dear Elizabeth to go on and be at peace, but she would not rest until I was at peace as well, and I could never be at peace as long as I was thought a murderer."

The group shuddered at this thought. None of them believed they could deal with being a murderer either. "So . . . you didn't strangle Elizabeth and then run away?" Lily asked gently.

"Of course not! I could never do that. I see people have continued to believe Wilkes' story all these years. Elizabeth and I would often meet in the common room, where we first fell in love. Her sister was allowed to court Septimus Snape because she was a Muggle. Elizabeth, however, was a witch, so she had to be subjected to the ancient ritual of betrothal. On Halloween night of our seventh year, we needed more privacy because we needed to try to find a way to be together, and Elizabeth was worried about what Wilkes' would do if he found out. Unfortunately for us, he was already more knowledgeable of our meetings than we thought he was, and he followed Elizabeth one evening and hid in our common room under his Invisibility Cloak. When he saw me go up the stairs, he waited just another moment before following. In his rage, he was not quiet ascending the stairs, so . . ."

Michael stopped talking, so Elizabeth continued the story. "I told Michael to hide in here while I dealt with Percival, but he was closer than we thought. He came in as I was closing the bookcase, and - it all happened so fast. He cast the Silencing charm on us, pushed me in the room with Michael, and closed the bookcase. He then ran to get Headmaster Dippit, who believed his story about finding Michael holding my dead body and running away. Percival told the entire falsehood right here in this room, and we were alive in here the entire time. We did not recover our voices for an hour, and no one could hear us pounding on the wall. When we finally regained our voices, it was too late; everyone was already gone. We did not have our wands; they were lying on the floor where we dropped them in our haste. We suffocated to death in here within hours. The next day, Percival returned, alone, wanting to read my diary. I got little satisfaction from the face full of water he repeatedly received, but at least he was never able to read my private thoughts. He threw the diary haphazardly on top of the bookcase in frustration, and never returned."

Once more, Michael took up the story. "We've been trying for one hundred years now to get help from someone, _anyone_, but none of the girls ever stayed in here long. We so longed to be at peace, and as the one hundred year anniversary approached, we felt increasingly helpless, but now, because of the six of you, we can finally be at peace. We will be eternally grateful."

"Oh, one more thing before we go," Elizabeth added, looking at Lily in particular, "Do not consider yourself silly if you get a bad feeling about something. I, too, had read Northanger Abbey and thought I was being silly with all my nervousness about what Percival might do to Michael or me. Because I ignored my intuition, we died. I do not want the same thing to happen to you, especially since you can marry whomever you wish." Elizabeth glanced subtly at James, and Lily blushed.

* * *

The school gathered around James, Lily, and Severus Snape at the start of the Halloween Feast much later that same day. Snape had been telling the entire school of the similarities between Lily Evans and Elizabeth Canton and James Potter and Michael Betancourt. He also felt the need to add that, rather than Potter's worst nightmare, the slaughter of Lily Evans would be the dream come true of Potter, the Slytherins, and the rest of the school. He did not realize, as he spoke, that James and Lily themselves were approaching him from behind. Hearing the tail end of Snape's oratory, James' face went livid, but Lily restrained him, mouthing, "Let me handle it." Surprised, James nodded his consent.

With James in tow, Lily approached Snape and tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned around, he gasped and stared momentarily, but recovered himself quickly. "Well, well, well, look who decided to show up, along with her future murderer."

"Severus, Severus, Severus, I seem to remember a conversation we had a few days ago where I told you not to go putting silly notions such as these into people's heads. You seem to be going against my warnings," she said sweetly. Everyone turned to look at the Head Girl. Surely she's about to do something, they all thought. They would not be disappointed.

Slightly fearful, Snape mumbled, "I told you I would take it under advisement."

"Take this under advisement, jerkweed," and Lily punched Snape, breaking his nose. Everyone stared at Lily in shock. Nobody saw that one coming, but most of them were pleased. James Potter was so happy that he unceremoniously picked her up and gave her a loud kiss on the lips, prompting both of them to blush deeply.

The Feast that followed was the best they had partaken in their years at Hogwarts. Afterwards, in their common room, James asked Lily if he could speak with her. "Of course," she replied.

"I've been thinking a lot lately, and I decided I cannot go on like this. I really like you, Lily, more than as a friend. Would you consider liking me as more than even a dearest friend?" He looked anxiously at the redhead sitting next to him on the couch.

"Okay," was all she said. And that was the only response he needed.

* * *

On November 1st, the school bustled with the rumor. Nobody could believe it. Binns was dead. Not just dead, but a ghost. His unfinished business, according to Samantha, was to torture enough students with his stories of giant and goblin wars to make up for the deaths that occurred in each: one tortured student for each life lost. Oh, and the cause of Binns' death? James Potter's apology caused him to have a heart attack in his sleep that night. 


End file.
